As someone who's owned a lot of cheap but reliable laptops, are those of you with MacBook Pros commonly needing to return to an Apple Store after purchasing for service? In my mind I've been on the verge of giving a MBP a shot a few times because my associates are always going on about how great the hardware and build quality is, but then I read about an issue like this and see what feels like a billion people chiming in about how "yeah mine does that too" and change my mind.
Perhaps this is a case of brand loyalty (e.g. "I'd rather push a Chevy than drive a Ford"). I acknowledge that of course the horror stories will come out in the comments for a thread about a common failure, and that a very popular brand is likely to have more people to comment, positively or negatively. I guess I'm just concerned I'll splurge on a top-end MBP and end up with something less reliable than a $450 Toshiba that refused to die.
I don't know how much a few anecdotes matter, but to answer your question, no. My MacBook from 2009 is running perfectly fine today. I used it quite heavily throughout college and always keep it on sleep mode so it's been running pretty much continuously for years. I did replace the hard-drive with an SSD, but I still use the original as a small portable drive.
After giving that MacBook to my dad, I upgraded to a 13" Retina MacBook Pro, which is amazing. I used it for a few months before selling it to my brother and switching to the late 2013 15" one. Both laptops are running great and there are no screen issues.
And for what it's worth, I had a positive experience when I needed to bring the 15" into the Apple store. I had stupidly used a cheap wireless mouse with a plastic USB connector and a piece of plastic got stuck in the USB port. Apple removed it free of charge.
Perhaps this is a case of brand loyalty (e.g. "I'd rather push a Chevy than drive a Ford"). I acknowledge that of course the horror stories will come out in the comments for a thread about a common failure, and that a very popular brand is likely to have more people to comment, positively or negatively. I guess I'm just concerned I'll splurge on a top-end MBP and end up with something less reliable than a $450 Toshiba that refused to die.